Month: January 2020

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A Night Above The Town

A few days before Christmas, we celebrated our 6th Anniversary (legal). After a bazillion years of being together, we got hitched in 2013 the minute we could. It was in between court decisions. No time to plan. No time to have a party. It was a kind of shotgun wedding, between court decisions. We were just glad to git ‘er done successfully.

This year we celebrated the occasion with dinner at The Roof, overlooking the Salt Lake Temple and the Christmas lights at Temple Square. Bow Tie o’ the Evening was formal and X-mas ornament-y. We had a dazzling view. We got THE best table. Our waiter was kind enough to snap our picture with the bright view in the background. He seems to have used a photography technique which I can only describe as the make-the-people-in-the-photo-appear-blobbed-up-like-fat-squatty-toads technique.

You know I’m into giving anniversary gifts based on the “traditional” type of gift which corresponds to the number of years. For example, wood is the traditional anniversary gift for the 5th anniversary. Last year, I scored bigly points with Suzanne by managing to procure her some wood crochet hooks.

The traditional 6th anniversary gift is something iron or candy, and I had a heckuva time coming up with something clever. I did manage to find earrings made of iron, as well as an iron necklace for Suzanne, cuz she’s always ready for jewelry. But I wanted to give her something more. And then I remembered something I saw as a kid in what I now call “old lady houses” or “Arsenic and Old Lace houses:” a vintage, purple slag glass, IRON-shaped CANDY dish filled with Hershey’s Hugs and Kisses. A two-fer. Score! Suzanne loves it. She was born with “old lady house” knick-knack likes.

The first purple slag glass, iron-shaped candy dish I was able to locate online was $29,000. That’s not the one I got for Suzanne. It doesn’t cost $29,000 to be clever with a traditional anniversary gift. I’ll hip you to what Suzanne gifted me for our anniversary, in the next post.

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Putting Away The Holidays

Today, I’ve been rounding up the holiday neckwear to store until next year’s Christmas season. The ties and bow ties are now hibernating peacefully in their storage bins, out in the garage. As I’ve mentioned previously, there is no more room in the Tie Room to hold my holiday neckwear year-round. I think of the seasonal neckwear in the garage as living in an elite, festive, planned retirement community. I prefer that to thinking of them as shunned and cast out from the Tie Room. I do check on them every couple of months during their hibernation period. It’s a habit I have.

During the storing o’ the merry neckwear this afternoon, I did find a casualty. It’s my Make Your Own Ugly Christmas Tie o’ the Day pal. A few years ago, I glued X-mas objects to it all by myself, as anyone can see. I even glued google eyes to Tie’s “knot, ” so it could have a face. I don’t know where they googled to. I found and saved two pom-pom balls that fell off at a Christmas party last year. Tie is missing other stuff, as well. It is kind of funny to see the glue spots left behind after objects have made their escape. But Tie expired from natural causes today, after I made the decision it was time to cease all resuscitation efforts. It is now whole, I am sure, in the Great Tie Heaven Beyond.

Note that I had a Ties.com box, which was totally appropriate and tie-sized— to lay to rest my home-made Tie o’ the Day.

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Puzzling A Neckwear Surprise

We haven’t put together a puzzle in years, but for some unknown reason I got the puzzle bee in my bonnet about 3 weeks ago. Since then, we have assembled 6. We aren’t tired of puzzling thus far.

This was one of those mystery puzzles where you read a fictional story of an unsolved murder, then you put the puzzle together— without knowing what the assembled picture is supposed to look like. The completed puzzle picture contains clues which aid you in your search for the fictional murderer.

Imagine my surprise when an untied Tie o’ the Day came together in the lower left corner of the puzzle. It’s even adorned with a diamond tie pin. It was kismet!

And just for your information, Tie o’ the Day was not the culprit.

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New Year’s Partying In Mom’s Living Room

In 2007, Dad died during the Christmas season. The holidays were extra tough for Mom that year. If you knew Mom and Dad together, you know Dad was always playing jokes on her— always trying to get a rise out of her. She was wise to most of his shenanigans, but they had fun. That year, I wanted to come up with some holiday experience for Mom which was a little Dad-like in its surprise and levity.

It was New Year’s Eve, and Mom was sacked out for the night on our couch at my house in Delta. Mom’s house was uninhabited. I gathered a few props. Quietly, Suzanne and Rowan and I scampered across the yard and snuck in to Mom’s house.

If you were ever in Mom’s living room, you know she had a menagerie of decorative animals and porcelain dolls. She had created the dolls herself.

Anyhoo… With the props I had gathered, we arranged a New Year’s Eve party for Mom’s animals and dolls. Mom would come home in the morning to find what her naughty menagerie had been up to while ringing in the New Year without her.

Our efforts to jolly-up Mom were a success. Dad would’ve been proud. She loved the mess she discovered when she opened her front door. She didn’t want me cleaning up the raucous remains immediately. She wanted people to see it and laugh about it with her, so her living room stayed blitzed for all of New Year’s Day. She cleaned it up herself the next day, before I could get over to her house.

Mom showed up at my front door with a grocery bag full of “bad” party props. A couple of weeks later, she showed up with 1 single cigarette which had somehow been overlooked when she cleaned up the first time. It had apparently been stuck behind one of her doll’s ears in its wig.

Suzanne and Rowan and I are in agreement: BEST. NEW. YEAR’S. EVE. EVER!